The reason DA Form 4982 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially MUZZLE VELOCITY RECORD, it serves to muzzle velocity record, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 01/01/2016, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to 200 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. T2COM is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. FM 6-40, TC 3-09.81 is the prescribing authority: it decides when the form is raised at all and where the completed document travels. Content and occasion are separated deliberately, so that a change in procedure does not require redesigning the page.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
Tab order is not a convenience feature; it was fixed when the form was built and generally traces the page, so following it produces the sequence the designer intended and leaves fewer gaps than a mouse. Exclusive option groups clear the previous selection because the record is not permitted to hold two contradictory answers. Single-line fields do not wrap for the same reason the layout is fixed: the printed page has to fall in known positions, so text past the field width is cut at the margin even though the screen still shows it whole. Overflow belongs in remarks or on a continuation, where there is room designed for it. And an inapplicable field is marked rather than skipped, since a blank tells a later reader nothing about whether the question was considered.
The signature is the point at which entries become an assertion someone stands behind, so it follows everything else and its absence leaves a draft. Countersignatures by reviewing, approving or witnessing officials each carry their own weight and are dated at signing, which is how the file preserves the order of responsibility. Seen that way, the familiar errors are not clerical trivia: an unanswered mandatory field, digits transposed in an identification number, day and month reversed, and residue from a reused file each put something false or unresolved into a document that will be relied upon.
Personal information may not be gathered silently, and the Privacy Act statement is how that obligation is met on paper: it names the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses and whether disclosure is mandatory. Because it exists to inform a decision, it belongs before the fields it covers rather than after them. A filled copy then holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the corresponding safeguards.
Download the form
Why several files for one page? Because the form has to be completed in a headquarters and in places without a workstation, and PDF covers both. The fillable pdf holds interactive fields that fix each entry in place and remove handwriting from the equation. The printable pdf is the same layout without those fields, meant for a printer and a pen. Neither is a lesser copy of the other; each answers a condition the other cannot.
Software determines whether an entry lasts. A browser viewer is designed for reading, and several will take typed input into fields without any means of writing it back — the text is simply absent when you reopen. A standalone reader handles the form structure properly.
There is no charge and no sign-up. Published documents are distributed as published, without modification.
What the form asks for
- BLANKA
- BLANKB
- CHRG1A
- CHRG1B
- CHRG2A
- CHRG2B
- CHRG3A
- CHRG3B
- CHRG4A
- CHRG4B
- CHRG5A
- CHRG5B
- CHRG6A
- CHRG6B
- CHRG7A
- CHRG7B
- CHRG8A
- CHRG8B
- ContentArea1
- DATE
- EIGA
- EIGB
- EIGC
- EIGD
The routing in FM 6-40, TC 3-09.81 decides where the document goes — a named office, the administrative channel, or the individual's file — and the records schedule for the series decides how long it stays. Neither is a local judgement, because a record system loses its meaning if each office keeps things for its own preferred interval. Copy the form before submitting it.
Related documents are located by series and number, and the relation is rarely accidental — forms under one proponent or one directive tend to serve steps of a single procedure. Anything the DA series form names on its face normally travels with it, as do the continuations, covers and transmittals the process generates. Assembling them together is what makes the submission a complete account.
Editions change because the process changes, and the printed edition date is the only marker of which version a page belongs to. A copy saved locally cannot know it has been superseded, so the date on it is compared against the edition in force before reuse. Records already executed under an earlier edition are left alone — a document is read under the terms it was made, and reopening completed files to match a later form would falsify the account.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. T2COM and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4982?
- MUZZLE VELOCITY RECORD
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/2016
- Who is responsible for this form?
- T2COM
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA,